No one has called it a “Satan sandwich,” but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to discern whether the Obama Administration’s American Jobs Act will be a take-it-or-leave-it buffet with a single price tag or an exercise in a la carte frugality.

Early today, White House adviser David Axelrod, appearing on Good Morning America, insisted the $447 billion package must reamin intact, offering: “it’s not an a la carte menu.”

Or maybe it is.

Later this morning administration officials said they would sign pieces of the American Jobs Act should they be sent over by Congress, as both CNN and The Huffington Post reported.

Then again, maybe not.

This afternoon, as Politico reports, a senior administration official told the press as they left Columbus that the White House intends to pressure Congress to pass the jobs bill in one fell swoop, not piece by piece. “We’re going to take this to them every day,” the official said, “and challenge them to pass the whole bill.”

So it appears the White House is settlling on its strategy: Congress is going to be pressured to order the full-meal deal. Or not.

Having swallowed the Satan sandwich this summer, it will be interesting to see if the Republican House can stomach an all-you-can-eat package, orders up an appetizer or two or passes on the menu altogether.

Earlier this week I defended Sen. Michael Bennet against the suggestion that he had slipped up on the trail and admitted that supporting Obama’s pricey policies had amounted to trillions of dollars of debt that hadn’t accomplished anything.

But the truth is, Bennet’s position is not a rogue one. Rather, it is a common complaint made by any number of us when we look at the condition the country is in that came from years of neglect — not simply because of recent (and yes, out-of-control) spending.

I made the argument based on the fact the appointed senator had argued the exact same line in June to those of us on The Denver Post editorial board. Bennet’s “nothing to show for it” remarks were much along the lines of arguments Obama had made while on the campaign trail. A big part of Team Obama’s economic stump speech was to focus on what it argued was the eroding economic power of the middle class.

So, not a “bombshell.”

Well, your Spotted This Morning correspondent has gotten some interesting e-mail and commentary based on his observation.

Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Jane Norton released a package of foreign policy positions today, backing it with an Internet ad buy attacking President Obama for going soft on terrorism.

Norton’s foreign policy paper, which her campaign said she would outline in a town hall forum tonight with Colorado Republicans, dings the Obama Administration for proposing to close the Guantanamo Bay prison holding alleged terrorists, and for wanting to bring those suspects to civilian trials on U.S. soil. Norton is also sharply critical of Obama’s handling of Israel, saying the administration has grown too critical of a key ally.

Norton’s web ad, supported with $15,000 in spending on prominent web sites, ridicules the administration for allegedly trying to rebrand the war on terror as an “overseas contingency operation.” It is true that Washington insiders earlier this year noticed the phrase creeping into official discussions of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as this Washington Post article discusses. The article goes on, however, to quote administration officials who said there is no mandated name change or avoidance of the “war on terror” phrase.

The foreign paper questions whether there should be timetables for troop withdrawals from either Iraq or Afghanistan, saying those decisions should follow recommendations of military leaders on the ground. Obama has said withdrawals from Afghanistan could begin in July 2011, after a troop surge he pushed for has had time to stabilize the nation.

“Our immediate objective is clear: to resist the call for an expedient withdrawal and instead redouble our efforts in denying the Taliban a place to hide,” Norton said on Afghanistan.

She also said defense and intelligence officials should not be barred from using “enhanced interrogation techniques” on suspected terrorists, methods that many groups have labeled torture.

“What’s more, with American lives at stake, terrorists should not be read their Miranda rights,” her paper reads. “I fully support giving our intelligence community the tools they need to get the job done.” There was considerable disagreement even among conservatives on this point, notably after a man was arrested for allegedly leaving an explosives-packed vehicle in New York’s Times Square.

Norton’s paper also mentions international trade and Iran sanctions, among other points. Norton says that while other American presidents had passed important trade legislation by this time in their terms, the Obama Administration has let languish some preliminary agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. She says the U.S. should impose tough trade sanctions on Iran for pursuing nuclear weapons, with or without U.N. approval.

The front page Washington Post story this morning ascribes the change to mounting pressure from both Democrats and Republicans. Is the president really going to give in that easily for political reasons?

What happened to using the civilian system to show the world how this country respects the rule of law? If the administration changes course to curry favor in the political arena, it would be vastly disappointing.

Of course, there has been no shortage of pressure for him to do so. A New York Times editorial today speaks to inappropriate efforts to force the trial into the military tribunal system and the ripple effects that would have. Read more…

The piece attracted an enormous response. And it’s clear that there is a passionate fear on the right that Obama is exactly trying to do just that.

I still think it’s completely reasonable to have Medicare cover consultations with providers of palliative care, who can offer hospice care and other forms of end-of-life care that diverts from the fight-till-the-last forms of curative care.

And I don’t think it’s smart to disparage either option for a patient, as that’s a decision that is deeply personal and individual.

But I would agree immediately with the argument that health care reform would be immorally out of line if it hoped to cut costs be reducing options for the terminally ill.

Here is an Obama supporter from the left-leaning Daily Beast blogsite that provides another view on the subject.

Using Obama’s own past statements, and a review of the kinds of thought on the subject incubated at the University of Chicago, Siegal warns that’s Obama’s plan “reeks of the Big Brother nightmare of repressive government that the shrewd propagandists on the right are always blathering about. Except that this time they could not be more right.”

A review of the new Gallup/USA TODAY poll on whether Americans agree with Obama about closing Guantanamo shows “devastating” opposition.

Brace up, America!

Byron York, the top political correspondent for the Washington Examiner, found that pretty much everyone, men and women, whites and nonwhites, educated types to dropouts, Republicans, Independents and even 42 percent of Democrats just hate the idea.

“When virtually the entire opposition party, plus 68 percent of independents, plus 42 percent of your own party opposes something you want to do, then you’re in trouble,” York says.

I’ve suggested sending the detainees to Crawford, but so far have gotten ZERO stated interest from the White House on this idea. So I know how Obama must feel as he reads these numbers, which is weak and horrible!

I’ve got to do my part to avert CATASTROPHE! My paycheck each week is going to contain an extra $13! I’ve got to spend it immediately to pitch in!

Wait. Something seems off. If you divide $400 by 52 work weeks, that’s only $7.69. But I thought Obama said – hmmm. Let’s check it again. No. It’s only $7.69 a week. Must’ve been someone else who said the $13 thing. Geithner probably, that moron can’t even figure out his taxes.

Only $7.69? Jeebers! That’s all?

OK. No worries. It’ll still work. It HAS to, or we’ll face CATASTROPHE!

I’ll add a dollar per week to help the multiplier effect!

I’d add more, but I need to make sure I’m hedging in case of job loss. (Right now here in Main-Stream-Media land we start every day by tossing a business card into a fishbowl. A reader chosen from those who read only online who doesn’t have the decency to subscribe to a single paper draws a card from the bowl. Whoever’s card is picked is given 15 minutes to clear out his desk and make tracks.)

But I’ll add a dollar, so that gives me $8.69 to spend EVERY WEEK!

Maybe I should save up a few weeks to score a bigger purchase and create a bigger stimulus effect. No. The logic is I need to be a stimulator, not a hoarder. If I start saving it the credit problem will remain frozen or whatever.

My car’s dirty, so I could start with a car wash. But that’s so old economy, and besides, my car burns gasoline.

I could buy one of those twisty florescent light bulbs! That’s green! I could buy one a week until my whole house – wait. I’ve already outfitted my house with those weird bulbs, like three years ago, and it’ll take four more years before they go out.

Be a stimulator, not a hoarder!

I’ll take a friend to coffee. But no, those super-hyphenated treats are symbols of pre-crises profligacy.

I’ll give the money to charity! But no, the stimulus bill already gives a few hundred million to charity. I don’t want to act redundantly.

I could buy a pair of socks! But I already have plenty of socks.

Why is this turning out to be such a puzzle? Must be all the pressure is trying to avert CATASTROPHE.

But this just feels pathetic: Thinking of plinking down $8.79 for a cheeseburger and fries or a six-pack of beer or half an album on iTunes just doesn’t feel really all that patriotic.

There’s this notion that due to the economic crisis we’ve suddenly changed as a nation and that we’re going to be more wholesome as a result.

One of the biggest lessons yesterday’s three-ring circus of collapsing Cabinet picks is supposed to be that we will not stand for brazen assumptions of self-worth or self-importance.

What most doomed Tom Daschle wasn’t that he didn’t pay all his taxes; it was that he didn’t pay taxes on a limousine and driver because he just assumed he deserved the perk – and that he assumed he deserved the perk because he was making millions doing little more than cashing in on the entrée his former-senator status gave him to power brokers.

We don’t like that anymore, as in: REALLY DON’T LIKE IT, don’t like it. Thus the zeal in which Obama’s supporters – and probably plenty of his critics – gloat over the salary caps going to the executives of banks and firms we’re bailing out.

I concede that my industry often thinks it is on to a new trend only to find that it’s not. But I’ve come across this argument from enough different quarters now that I’m just as intrigued as I can be.

“For the American public, Daschle became the latest symbol of everything that is wrong with Washington — the influence-peddling and corner-cutting and sacrifice of the public good to private interest,” Perlstein writes. “Now that this system has let them down, and left them poorer and anxious about the future, people are angry about it and no longer willing to accept the corruption of the public process and the whole notion of public service.

“The irony, of course, is that Barack Obama understood all this and tapped into Americans’ frustration as the central message of his ‘change’ campaign. But even he, with only four years in Washington, failed to see the depth of the problem or anticipate the ferocity of the backlash,” Perlstein writes.

Tongue in cheek, Brooks writes, “I’m afraid there are rich people all around the country who are about to suffer similar self-immolation because they don’t understand that the rules of privileged society have undergone a radical transformation.”

And who can’t help but laugh at Maureen Dowd’s skewering of Tom Thain and his wacko explanations for his million-dollar office makeover?

After quoting Thain’s halting blather: “It really would’ve been – very difficult – for – me to use it in the form it was in,” she quips:

“Did it have a desk and a phone?”

Meanwhile, at less exalted levels, reports that the middle-class is finally saving money again, paying down its debt and living more frugally suggests we’re becoming more down to earth and less enamored by extravagance.

Now, I have to admit I get nervous around overly wholesome people. But I’d get violently ill if I had to hang around a guy like Thain.

So I’ll skip the Martini tonight and drink a beer. Then I’ll toast this brighter side of the recession.

Let’s face it, it’s a lot easier thinking about how best to serve the sick and poor and elderly if you don’t have to worry about driving or taxes.

Then again, maybe it’s better to hire people who actually have to think about the realities of daily life if they’re going to do such things as run the nation’s Health and Human Services department, an immense bureaucracy with a budget of $29.5 billion (and those are pre-stimulus dollars.)

HHS runs a long and serious roster of public services, from Medicaid and Medicare to programs that target the prevention of diseases, child abuse, food and drug safety and even early childhood “Head-Start” education.

We ought to trust that whoever runs such an agency is completely above board.

Lynn Bartels thinks politics is like sports but without the big salaries and protective cups. The Washington Post's "The Fix" blog has named her one of Colorado's best political reporters and tweeters.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.